The subject I have chosen to discuss as something that has already "tipped" is the diagnosis of ADHD in children and the subsequent prescribing of drugs to "control" this. This is a controversial subject and I feel very strongly that like so many other "illnesses" or "disorders", this one is overly diagnosed and as a result, many children are floating through their childhoods like zombies.
ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) or ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) are diagnoses often handed out by physicians to children who are overactive or have limited attention span problems. Although I agree that some children may have real physiological and/or psychological issues that cause them to be overly active or not clearly focused, I think they are a small percentage of the children who are on medication today for ADHD.
So, how does this relate to Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point"? Well, I think the situation began "tipping" in the late 1990's and has gotten out of control. ADHD gots its official name as a disorder by the NIH in 1980, although hyperactivity in children had been studied since the beginning of the 1900's. Beginning in the late 1990's, the FDA began to approve several drugs to administer to children for this "disorder". Previously, Ritalin had been the main drug used to treat hyperactivity, but from 1996 to 2002, such drugs as Adderal, Concerta, Metadate, Focalin and Strattera emerged.
Advertising was a major "stickiness factor" in helping tip the use of ADHD medication. Magazine and television ads showed how medication could make your hyperactive child docile and more manageable. Parents could now go on with their daily lives and not have to worry about their children being overly active. The children would now be focused on the parents and listen more intently so the parents would only have to tell a child what to do once. This drives me nuts!
I have seen two children very dear to my heart change into mellowed out shells of what they once were. There is a propensity in our society to think that a pill is the cure-all for anything that isn't "quite right" with us. One of the two children I am referring to is my niece, and it is now so much easier for my sister to watch her child grow from afar as she does all she needs to do with her busy life. In case you haven't noticed, I am vehemently against administering medications to children on a long term basis unless they have a life threatening illness. I do not believe my niece or my friend's daughter (who have now been taking medication daily for the last several years) need this medication. They used to be very active, intelligent children, full of energy. They needed attention and were full of life and full of affection. Now they are more subdued, tranquil and obedient. How nice for their mothers. What are they going to be like when they get older? Also, why weren't they allowed to just be children?
The following is an excerpt from a blog on the ADHD Help Center website (www.add-adhd-help-center.com). The situation has definitely tipped:
"Prescriptions for stimulant medications to treat ADHD and Attention Deficit Disorder skyrocketed over the past decade, as have reports of Ritalin abuse. New medications continue to appear to meet the demand. Never in history have there been so many “ADHD� people. Never in history have so many people taken stimulant medications for ADHD and Attention Deficit Disorder.
Yet despite the long history of ADHD and millions of children currently taking ADHD medications, there is still a lack of adequate data on the long-term effects that ADHD treatments have on children. I wonder what the doctors and parents of tomorrow will say about the indiscriminate drugging of our children."
I have been around many children of all ages, although I have none myself. Children need to run, play, exercise, breathe fresh air, and experience life. Parents should be there to help guide them and not domesticate them into trained animals. OK, I may be exaggerating slightly, but this problem tipped in the 1990's and still exists today. It all stems from overactive parents who lead busy lives and selfishly do not put their children first. Many of them are probably on precription drugs that are prescribed for "conditions" they believe they have. How did we survive so many centuries without all of these medications? How will our children ever learn what it feels like to not be medicated if they are doomed to be diagnosed with ADHD and forced to take medication every day of their childhood? Our country is full of hypochondriacs and now it has moved down the line to our children.
I say "stop the madness" and get a healthier family environment movement to tip. Let's change the "The Law of The Few" connectors to include role model parents and children of free expression, rather than the doctors and pharmaceutical companies who are currently helping tip the ADHD epidemic.
Once this epidemic tipped in the 1990's, "The Power of Context" prevailed and parents everywhere began jumping on the bandwagon. As Gladwell states, "human beings are a lot more sensitive to their environment than they think." I'm not sure how we are going to reverse this trend, but I hope it happens soon. Otherwise, our future generations may become medicated robots and become dehumanized! Hopefully this situation will tip in the opposite direction and there will be hope for both today's children and the children of tomorrow!
Hi Bob - What an important topic. Thank you for providing such a great background to your views and your analysis based on Gladwell's three tenets for the The Tipping Point.
One of the few simple pleasures I allow myself is watching Desparate Housewives on Sunday nights. I was very proud to watch the episode where Lynette decides not to give her kids the Ritalin that her pediatrician prescribed for her rowdy pre-schoolers.
I think you've done a fantastic job of defining the context, stickiness, and law of the few, so I'm going to restrict my comments to some observations I have as a fairly new parent. These observations are based on my life and my friends' lives, so clearly they are not generalizeable to any larger populations, but I do think they yield some pretty important concepts that we may be able to use to reverse the tipping point trend.
Here are my observations:
1. We're having kids later in life.
Many parents, like my husband and I, are having children later in life. My mom was 16 when I was born, and I think my mother-in-law was 19 when my husband was born. My mom and my mother-in-law didn't know life outside of having children. They went from being a child to getting married and having children.
2. We're having children after or during successful professional careers.
Most of my friends are just starting to have children now, and most of them have had or continue to have very successful careers. There are pressures for both parents: do you become a stay-at-home mom/dad, so you put your kids in full-time daycare, or do you try to balance the two.
3. We're conflicted about family and career choices and strive for a mythical perfection.
There is an unsaid pressure to achieve a mythical sense of being the perfect parent - to balance career and family. It's phenomenially difficult. At best, one or the other suffers at any given point. No one is perfect.
4. We're not taught how to raise children.
I learned a great many things through out the decades of education I've received, but I've NEVER received any education about how to raise a child. Generations ago, this was never a problem because many of us came from very agrarian origins where most families were large and each of the older children helped raise the younger kids. I am an only child, and I knew very little about children, moreless babies, when I took one home from the hospital two-in-a-half years ago. How could it be that we are taught math, reading, and writing, but not how to raise our children?
5. Kids have very unique characteristics that have nothing to do with their parents.
A good friend of mine has a son about a month older than my son. He is the quintessential perfect child - he is polite, caring, and mild mannered - never had public tantrums or biting/kicking/pinching episodes. Immediately, I thought that I must be doing something wrong. After many episode of the Supernanny and dozens of books and articles and quasi-interviews, What I learned is to accept my child for the wonderful unique human being he is - yes, he has tantrum and fits, but they are not so unusual. He also has a natural curiousity about things that many kids don't have. He loves to learn new things. He also has a tremendous love for being with groups of people. Each child is uniquely different and should be praised for their unique characteristics.
6. Because we want to be perceived as perfect, we always look for the quick fix and something to blame for imperfection. As you mentioned with your sister, "it is now so much easier for my sister to watch her child grow from afar as she does all she needs to do with her busy life." Also, she now has something to blame for the problem - it's ADHD. That pacifies many people and provides the quick fix that we need to feel better about the situation and our lives.
So, these are my observations. I'm still thinking about how to reverse this Tipping Point. I think it has to do with early education about raising children and restriction of pharmaceutical ads. We can't solve all the world's problems, but I'm certainly still thinking about this one.
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Posted by: ZNQRPAIG4 at June 13, 2007 3:41 PM